


Garybettman

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: 31 in 31: NHL Fairy Tales [6]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: (or dallas! stars!), Dallas Stars, Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 20:36:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12043800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "'I’ll give you three days, and if you can guess my name you can keep the kid.'"





	Garybettman

There was once a poor French hockey player, who had a beautiful hockey playing roommate. One day he was called to speak to the king of Dallas about his cat sanctuary. But, whilst he was there, he was so overwhelmed by being in the presence of the king (and of certain of his guardsmen), that he felt the need to inflate his own consequence a little.

Thus it was that King Jamie of Dallas first heard of Tyler Seguin’s miraculous hockey teaching abilities.

“Well, if he’s that good, bring him to the castle in the morning, and we shall see,” the king said, and it was at that moment that Rouss realised just what it was that he had done.

“Segs, I am so sorry,” Rouss said when he got home. “It’s just, it was the king, and then there was a guard, so tall, and with the most beautiful smile-”

“Man, I don’t know anything about kids, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Please try. Maybe you’ll be good at it?”

“I doubt it,” said Tyler. He grinned. “So what’s his name?”

The next morning, when Tyler arrived at the palace, he was met at the gates by a tall guard with a killer smile, who could only be the main cause of all this mess. “You know,” Tyler said to him, with his laziest grin, “my friend thinks you’re pretty hot.”

“What’s his name, then?” the guard asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t think it’s fair to tell you, seeing as he doesn’t know yours.” 

“Ben,” said the guard, and then they were at the doors to the throne room.

“I need you to teach these children to play hockey within three days,” said the king. “But that shouldn’t be any problem for one as skilled as I hear you are.”

“Huh,” said Tyler, who couldn’t really think of anything else to say, because it was the king and because he was exactly Tyler’s type.

The kids were shits. It was still fun teaching them, and he felt like they really took it all in, but they had more energy than he did and it was starting to get ugly trying to keep them in control. At last, completely out of patience, he broke a stick over his knee in a failed bid to shut them up. An answering cracking noise sounded behind him, and he turned. He expected to see a kid copying his bad example, but what he saw instead was much stranger: it was a tiny man, gremlin-faced, who smiled at him and asked what was wrong.

“I’m just so _tired_ ,” said Tyler to what he assumed was a hallucination.

“I can help you with that. But what will you give me?”

“Uhhhh, I have this spare hockey stick?”

“Fine,” said the little man, and Tyler was suddenly full of energy.

The same thing happened again the next day, except that this time the king arrived after Tyler had traded his ring to the small man in exchange for more energy.

“They’re really coming along,” the king said. “If they can beat my brother’s youth hockey team tomorrow, I want you to marry me.”

Tyler laughed. “You don’t actually mean that, man.”

“Actually, I kind of do. You’re good looking and good with kids, royal marriages have been predicated on less.”

“Huh,” said Tyler, at a loss for words once again. “Well OK then.”

Tyler made it through the morning of the third day with no trouble, for all the children were excited about the afternoon’s game. But as he took to the bench, he felt a wave of exhaustion overtake him. 

The little man stepped out of the tunnel. “What do you have to trade with me today?”

“I have nothing left that I can actually give you. Except tickets to the gun show?”

“What? No, that’s not a valid form of payment. I want your first child.”

Assuming he would have no biological children, Tyler agreed, and felt once more that rush of energy. He threw himself wholeheartedly into winning the game, and when it was over and the children under his tutelage were victorious, King Jamie took him out to center ice and proposed on the spot.

They had been married a year when it was suggested they could adopt children into the line of succession, and as they were royalty it was not long at all before they were approved. But soon after the adoption went through, the gremlin-faced man appeared to Tyler once more.

“That kid is mine,” he said, and reached out to take it.

“What? No,” said Tyler. “He’s not, like, biologically mine, that can’t count!”

“It counts in every way that matters.”

“Shit,” Tyler said. “Isn’t there anything else I can give you?”

“No; a human is something more dear to me than all the wealth in all the castles in the world. But I’ll tell you what: I’ll give you three days, and if you can guess my name you can keep the kid.”

“Deal,” said Tyler, and set to guessing. But though he went through every name he could think of, from “Sidney” to “McLeod,” none of them was the right one.

The next day he tasked a fleet of messengers with discovering new names, but none of them was right either. At last, Tyler felt he would despair, but upon the bright dawning of a new day the last of his messengers returned, wide-eyed and out of breath.

“Please tell me you found it, Klinger.”

“Well, it’s not exactly a name like you’d expect, but I was coming back from the kingdom of Edmonton and I saw a man like the one you described. I hid from him, and heard him dance around his fire, singing a song. It went:

“‘Today a stew, tomorrow, cake,  
‘The prince of Dallas I shall take.  
‘How easy it was to trick Seguin  
‘Who’ll never know my name is Garybettman.’”

When Tyler heard this, he was immeasurably glad, and even seeing the small man’s ugly little face couldn’t make him less happy.

“So, then, do you have any last guesses?” he asked.

“Are you called Rouss?”

“No.”

“Are you called Ben?”

“No.” 

“Then, are you called Garybettman?”

“You got that from a witch!” screamed the man, and stomped his foot so hard it sank into the hot ground, and he could not pull it out again. At the last, he pulled away so hard that his leg came off, and hopped away in a rage.

And Dallas was never troubled by Garybettman again.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Ben Bishop's face made me do it.  
> \- Also, cats.


End file.
